A Second Too Late
by Alipeeps
Summary: AU Shepwhumpy tag fic to Season 4 episode Doppelganger. WARNING! SPOILERS FOR PLOT OF DOPPELGANGER! My take on what might have happened if a certain scene had ended differently.. NOW COMPLETE.
1. Chapter 1

**_WARNING! SPOILERS FOR PLOT DETAILS OF DOPPELGANGER!!_**

_So I couldn't resist writing an AU tag to this almost-whump scene... what would have happened if Ronon hadn't been quite quick enough with that stunner?_

* * *

Ronon was a second too late. Not even that. Probably only a fraction of a second, the stunner blast hitting Lorne even as his finger was moving, tightening on the trigger. But it didn't matter. A second, a fraction of a second; too late was too late and even as Lorne's face twisted from the shock of the stunner, the gun went off.

The retort was shockingly loud in the echoing hallway.

Lorne and Sheppard hit the floor at the same time. The Major stiffened and collapsed as the bolt of energy overloaded his neural pathways and abruptly shut his consciousness down, like flicking a switch. The Lt Colonel staggered slightly, the impact spinning him to the side, then simply folded, hitting the floor heavily.

For a seemingly endless moment there was only stunned silence, and the ringing echo of gunfire, and then all was chaos; voices raised in shock and disbelief, marines snapping orders to each other, Ronon's snarl of fury from above. Colonel Carter was radioing for a medical team even as she turned to crouch quickly beside Colonel Sheppard.

He was still conscious as Teyla dropped to her knees beside him, his face slack with a kind of stunned disbelief, but even as she reached for him he was slipping away, his eyes drooping closed and his head rolling loosely to the side. Colonel Carter hurriedly pressed her fingers to his neck, checking for a pulse, and her voice was tight as she tried unsuccessfully to rouse him, "Colonel Sheppard? Colonel?!"

Teyla cast her eyes quickly over his limply sprawled body, searching for the entry wound. Lorne's aim had been knocked off by the stunner blast and the bullet seemed to have hit low and to the side. John's habitual black clothing camouflaged the damage but she quickly found a small hole in his shirt, the fabric around it already glistening wetly. She pulled up his shirt to find a neat hole in the left side of his abdomen, blood already welling thickly. Her instinctive reaction was to reach for the field bandage they each always carried… but they weren't off-world and she wasn't wearing her carefully stocked tac vest; hurriedly, she shrugged off her uniform jacket and wadded it up into a ball before pressing it carefully against John's blood-smeared abdomen and applying pressure. John gave a half-formed grunt of protest as she pushed down hard and she looked up to see a fleeting grimace of pain pass over his face; he didn't rouse but the fact that he was aware enough to react to pain made her release the breath she hadn't even realised she was holding.

"He gonna be okay?" Ronon's rough voice startled her and she looked around to find him hovering nearby, his stunner still in his hand. The tension of his posture betrayed the anxiety that he kept from his face.

"Medical team is en route," Carter answered shortly and Ronon's expression grew more closed at the ambiguous response.

There was nothing more they could do until the medical team arrived and Teyla, her attention until recently focused solely on John, took a moment to look around. The atrium was awash with people, more onlookers having been drawn by the sound of the gunshot. Major Lorne lay where he had fallen, watched over by a still cautious party of marines, his 9mm safely removed.

The pounding of feet sounded from down the corridor and Dr Keller burst into the room, sprinting ahead of a gurney and accompanying medics. Her expression was shocked as she skidded to a halt in the atrium and took in the scene before her but she responded with the calm yet decisive composure that Teyla had come to expect from the young doctor. Teyla was busy keeping pressure on the wound and Colonel Carter quickly pushed to her feet and moved aside to let Keller kneel and assess her patient. John was unconscious, a sheen of sweat on his pale skin. He didn't stir as Keller checked his vitals.

The medical team clustered around John, their movements practised and coordinated, and Teyla was gently moved aside, Dr Williams' hands replacing hers on the balled-up jacket, keeping steady pressure on the wound as a blood pressure cuff was slipped around John's arm, IVs were set up and a needle slid skilfully under his skin.

Dr Keller's face was serious, focused, as she gently lifted the blood-soaked coat to get a look at the entry wound and Teyla found she could not read the doctor's reaction. John's face was obscured from her view as the medical team clustered around him, and she found herself staring abstractedly at the haphazard sprawl of John's legs, his booted feet seeming somehow incongruous in the relaxation of unconsciousness.

There was movement beside her and she jumped, startled to find Ronon standing close behind her, his eyes fixed firmly on the drama playing out before them. His face was an impassive mask but she knew him well enough to see past the stoic exterior, to read in the set of his face, the tension of his body, the fear and anger that roiled within him. She knew he was blaming himself for this, for not being quick enough, for not being able to protect his commanding officer. Though the situation was not of his making, though no-one present, John included, would think to blame him for the outcome, she knew Ronon would not be so quick to forgive himself.

"Okay, carefully now…"

Dr Keller's voice drew her attention back to John as two of the medics carefully lifted John's body, half rolling him onto his side to expose the back of his torso. Dr Keller had come around to John's left side and was kneeling close beside him. Her body mostly blocked Teyla's view but as the doctor leaned forward for a closer look, Teyla caught a glimpse of bloody, ragged flesh; an angry gaping wound. She heard Ronon bite out a curse under his breath and she felt a shiver run through her. The Earth people's guns were an effective weapon, far more advanced than most societies in the Pegasus galaxy could dream of possessing, but they were also deceptively deadly; the small projectiles entered the body almost cleanly, leaving just a small hole, but the damage they caused as they exited could be devastating.

"One, two, three…" The action around John seemed to increase in intensity, Dr Keller calmly issuing commands as John's limp body was carefully swung across to the waiting gurney, medics fussing around him, holding up bags of IV fluid, tightening straps to hold him in place. The collapsed gurney was quickly raised up, the legs locking into place with a metallic rattle, and without a backward glance Dr Keller turned towards the infirmary, her attention focused solely on John as she hurried alongside the swiftly moving gurney. Within the space of a heartbeat, they were gone from view, leaving a palpable vacuum in the atrium, the only remnants of the drama the still unconscious Major Lorne, the shocked witnesses and a smeared pool of blood on the floor.

Colonel Carter was the first to shake herself into action, taking charge of the situation with calm authority. On her instructions, a couple of burly marines hoisted Major Lorne up between them and their colleagues formed up to escort them.

"Put him in isolation for now," Colonel Carter advised. "We need to find out exactly what happened here…"

Ronon didn't care to wait to find out what had happened; without a word he turned and headed for the infirmary and, with a nod of acknowledgement to Colonel Carter, Teyla hurried after him. Colonel Carter had not been in Atlantis long but she was an experienced officer in the Earth military and had been a member of an SG team herself for many years; Teyla knew that the Colonel understood the bonds that built a team, that she knew without asking that Teyla would be in the infirmary if she was needed, that they would all be there, all of John's team, for as long as was necessary…

Ancestors. Rodney. Her stomach twisted and she hesitated for a moment, regretting the need to share this burden with him, to lay upon him the fear and dreadful worry that squeezed like a fist around her heart. What was the Earth saying John had taught her? Ah yes. Ignorance is bliss. He'd been talking about the millions of people on Earth, living their everyday lives in utter ignorance of the dangers that threatened their planet, of the Go'auld, of replicators… of the Wraith. She had tried to imagine at the time what it would be like to grow up, to live one's life, without the cullings, without the fear and the destruction. She could not conceive of it. A part of her had envied the people of Earth their carefree existence, been jealous of their ignorance. But she had not truly understood the phrase until now. Not until she was the one poised to take that ignorance away from someone, to change their world between one second and the next. Now she really understood that ignorance was bliss. With a heavy sigh she tapped her radio.

"What?! I'm kind of busy at the moment so…"

"Rodney."

He must have heard something in her voice. Despite her carefully calm and neutral tone, just one word was enough to stop him in his tracks, and his voice was already tinged with a current of panic as he demanded, "What? What is it?"

She sighed softly. "It is John. There has been… an incident."

"Incident?" Rodney's voice was rising in pitch with every word. "What the hell does that mean? What kind of incident?!"

"Rodney…" she couldn't hold back the hint of exasperation that bled through into her voice as she tried to stem the tirade; this was a difficult enough task and Rodney was not making it easier. She struggled to find the words before realising that there simply was no good way to say this.

"He has been shot. Dr Keller has taken him into surgery…"

"_What_?!" In her mind's eye she could clearly picture Rodney's face, his expression of disbelief. "What in god's name _happened_?! Is he… is it serious?"

"I do not know, Rodney. Ronon and I are on our way to the infirmary now."

There was a brief pause, a moment of silence as Rodney processed the implications of that statement, and then his voice came back over the radio, brusque and tightly controlled.

"I'll meet you there." The radio clicked into silence.

* * *

_TBC..._


	2. Chapter 2

**_WARNING! SPOILERS FOR PLOT DETAILS OF DOPPELGANGER!!_**

* * *

The first thing he was aware of was sound, a confusing jumble of beeps and clicks and distant voices. It was all blurred, sounds echoing oddly and merging into one another. He couldn't make sense of it and thinking seemed to require incredible effort… much easier just to slip back into the comfortableness darkness. But he couldn't. Because the second thing he became aware of was pain. It too was oddly distant, muffled, but it was constant… a dull, numb throbbing that wouldn't let him slip away, wouldn't let him sink back into comfortable slumber.

Reluctant consciousness brought more definition to the pain, and a growing awareness of other sensations; starched sheets against his skin, an antiseptic smell and the cold, clammy sensation of something covering his mouth and nose. He shifted sluggishly, trying to ease his discomfort, and the numb pain got a whole lot less numb and abruptly localised to his left side, flaring hotly. He moaned weakly. The thing on his face felt clumsy, foreign, his own breath making his skin hot and clammy, and he struggled to raise an arm that felt like it weighed twice as much as it should have and fumbled to move the obstruction aside, to take a breath of fresh air.

His fingers touched smooth plastic and then his arm was being pulled away, pushed back down against the mattress, and he was too weak to resist.

"No, John. Leave it be. Dr Keller!"

The voice came from close by, the familiar warm tones tight with concern, heavy and thick with emotion. Teyla. He tried to speak, her name on his tongue, but the words wouldn't come, his lips moving silently. He swallowed thickly, trying to get some moisture into his mouth.

"Colonel Sheppard? Can you hear me, Colonel?"

Another voice. His clumsy thoughts struggled to match face and name to the words. Keller. Dr Keller. Infirmary. He was…

"Are you with me, Colonel? I need you to open your eyes for me now."

He frowned, pulled in a shuddering breath, and grimaced as the pain flared again, radiating out across his abdomen. He tried to speak but what came out was no more than a mumbled groan.

"John? Open your eyes, John."

Teyla. He wanted to do as they asked but it seemed a mammoth task. His body felt heavy, his muscles weak and uncoordinated. Even thinking was an effort. He concentrated and managed to blink his eyes slowly, drowsily open. The ceiling was pale, bronze-tinged green and Keller was leaning over him, her expression serious. The plastic dome of an oxygen mask curved up over his nose and mouth; trying to focus on it made him cross-eyed. He tried to lift his arm, wanted to move the damn thing aside, but a firm grip pushed his arm back to the bed and he rolled his head tiredly to find Teyla standing beside him, her hand on his arm. He frowned. She looked… tired. Shaken.

"Colonel Sheppard? Do you remember what happened?" It was Keller, pulling his attention back to her. His thoughts were jumbled, his mind felt like it was wrapped in cotton wool. Pain throbbed angrily in his stomach and he remembered a gun pointed at him and…

"Lorne?" His voice came out slurred and shaky, muffled by the mask.

"Yes, Colonel. Major Lorne's gun went off as Ronon stunned him and the bullet hit you in the upper left abdomen…"

Keller's explanation carried on without him as the grumbling pain agreed with her about where he'd been shot. Shit. His brain was still catching up. He'd been shot. Lorne had shot him.

"He alright?" he mumbled dopily.

"I'm sorry?"

"Lorne… he alright?" he clarified, stringing the words together more effort than it should have been. Keller didn't reply for a long moment and a frisson of fear snaked along his spine, setting his pulse racing and clearing some of the fog from his mind; he looked up sharply to find Keller looking at him as though he'd grown a second head, her mouth working soundlessly. She must have seen something in his face, realised what he was thinking, because suddenly she was gabbling, falling over herself to reassure him.

"Oh no, no, no, nothing like that. He's fine. Honestly, don't worry. There's nothing wrong with him." She grimaced a little. "Well, other than feeling freaked out and guilty as hell for shooting his CO…"

John's huff of relief misted into condensation inside the face mask and he twitched his arm irritably. He was feeling progressively more awake… and progressively more uncomfortable; the fire in his belly was slowly burning through whatever meds they'd got him on. He shifted a little, trying to find a more comfortable position, and held his breath for a moment as the pain level spiked briefly.

"Colonel?"

"What happened? With Lorne?" He cut Keller off abruptly. "Did he say?"

His words were indistinct through the plastic mask and with a sigh he reached up and pushed the mask aside before anyone could stop him, sucking in a grateful breath of cool air. Keller looked like she was thinking about arguing the toss over the mask but it was obvious he was breathing fine without it and she wordlessly conceded that battle, answering his question as she slide a hand under his neck and lifted his head enough to free the elastic strap of the mask from beneath it. Even that little movement was unexpectedly tiring and she was part way through her explanation before his mind actually caught up with what she'd said.

"Sleepwalking?!" he repeated incredulously.

"John…" Teyla took over the explanation, her voice filled with an unaccountable sadness. "It's the crystal… the one you touched on M3X-387. It seems when you touched it, you released something. An… an entity. One that can travel from person to person and can affect their dreams. I was the first, then Dr Keller, then Ronon…" she faltered.

"Every one of us had incredibly vivid nightmares, Colonel," Keller explained. "Nightmares in which you played a central role, in which you seemed to be negatively influencing the dream."

John looked a little dazedly from one of them to the other, not sure whether to believe what he was hearing. If it hadn't have been for the serious looks on their faces, and the growing thrum of pain in his gut, he'd think he was still sleeping; put all this down to some freaky anaesthetic-induced hallucination. He struggled to make sense of it.

"Something is impersonating me in people's nightmares?" It sounded almost laughable. But no-one was laughing.

"In Lorne's dream you – or the entity that looked like you – were a replicator and you were going to destroy the city." Keller's face was grave. "In his dream, he tried to stop you. Unfortunately, the nightmare caused him to sleepwalk and to act out his dream."

John frowned. "He was asleep when he shot me?"

"He had no memory of what happened when he awoke," Teyla explained quietly. "He remembered dreaming but had no awareness of having gotten out of bed and gone anywhere. Apparently, it is not uncommon with sleepwalking incidents. According to Ka.." She broke off suddenly and looked away, her eyes filled with a great sadness.

His heart lurched sickeningly. "Teyla?"

He watched her struggle for composure – Teyla, the most centred, controlled person he had ever met – and in that brief moment a myriad of fears washed over him. Oh dear god, what had happened? While he had lain here in a hospital bed, taken down by a goddamn nightmare, what had _happened_?! When Teyla looked up at him, her eyes were brimming with tears and her voice was broken as she told him simply, "It killed Kate."

"_What_?!" The world stopped turning, the pain in his belly forgotten. Dr Heightmeyer? Dead? This thing… this thing had killed people? This thing that _he_ had brought into the city…

Keller was talking and her words seemed to echo oddly in his head. "We thought it was spread by touch." She gestured at Teyla and herself as she spoke, "The progression was sequential to start with; first Teyla, then after I examined her in the infirmary it spread to me, and then to Ronon while I was treating him." Her mouth turned downwards in frustration. "But beyond that it seems to have spread exponentially. We've scanned Major Lorne and he's clear; Dr McKay and Colonel Carter have theorised that it can travel through the conduits. It could be anywhere. Dr Zelenka is using the samples to try and calibrate the citywide sensors…"

John's head was spinning and the pain in his side had returned with renewed vigour. "What samples?" he croaked, trying desperately to keep up.

"We went back to the planet to try and find the crystal and others like it, to try and determine how the entity could be tracked… and removed from the host."

Back to the planet? John looked down at himself, at the infirmary-issue scrubs, the IV in his arm. "How long have I been out?" he asked incredulously.

"It's been over a day," Keller told him. John's shock must have shown on his face because she rushed to explain further. "The bullet did quite some damage, Colonel. You were in theatre for several hours and have been under heavy sedation since then. Gunshot wounds to the abdominal area are notoriously complicated and painful and you needed a chance to rest and begin the healing process…"

The rest of Keller's explanation washed over him, meaningless words; internal bleeding; risk of infection; low blood pressure; respiratory distress. The pain in his belly was a hot, angry fire and he welcomed it; he deserved it. He'd done this, brought this into their midst. He'd killed Kate Heightmeyer as surely as if he'd put a gun to her head.

He focused his gaze on the pale green of the ceiling as Keller fussed and lectured, telling him how lucky he was to be alive.

"John?"

He couldn't bring himself to meet Teyla's gaze. Kate was her friend, for god's sake. He grimaced as the pain spiked, stealing his breath.

"Colonel Sheppard?" Keller's voice sounded oddly echoey, distorted, and he realised distantly that his chest was starting to feel tight, his head swimming a little as each successive breath seemed to fail to pull in enough air. One of the beeping noises in the background changed pitch and got faster, shrilling insistently. He was feeling floaty, heavy-headed, when a hand pressed the oxygen mask over his face and held it in place. The plastic was cold and smooth against his skin and the oxygen tasted stale, artificial, but the tightness in his chest began to ease and he came back to himself with a snap, sucking in a shuddering breath as the pain in his stomach growled its displeasure.

"Colonel? I'm going to give you something for the pain. Teyla?" Keller's face moved out of view as Teyla's hand replaced hers on the mask, holding it gently against his face. He breathed slowly and deeply, the pain pulling at his fraying control, and flinched from the understanding in Teyla's eyes. She had lost a friend, a good friend, and he was responsible. He wanted to tell her, to say he was sorry, but the words wouldn't come.

The pain was shortening his breath, despite the oxygen, by the time Keller returned with a loaded syringe. His body wanted instinctively to curl around the pain but moving just made the pain worse. So he lay stiff and unmoving, hot pain rippling through him, as Teyla gently brushed the damp hair back from his forehead.

"This will make you drowsy, Colonel. Sleep is what your body needs most right now…" Keller was swabbing the IV port when the infirmary doors slid open with their distinctive sigh and Colonel Carter walked in, her step at once hurried and yet oddly reluctant. The look on her face made Keller pause, the syringe still in her hand, and Teyla stiffen.

John forgot about the burning pain, forgot about everything, as Colonel Carter regarded them gravely and announced, "We've found it. It's in Rodney."

* * *

_TBC..._


	3. Chapter 3

**_WARNING! SPOILERS FOR PLOT DETAILS OF DOPPELGANGER!!_**

_The continuation of the events of the ep follwing my AU version of the scene with Lorne... this fic has refused to be wrapped up in this chapter so there'll be one more to come..._

* * *

"I'm not going to let this thing kill anyone else. I'm not going to let it kill Rodney!"

"Colonel…" Carter's voice was weary, tinged with exasperation.

"I have to do this." He was almost pleading now, trying desperately to make her understand. "You _know_ Rodney. He won't be able to…"

"Colonel," she interrupted him, her brisk tone tempered by a regretful sympathy that telegraphed her intentions better than any words. "You got shot barely a day ago. You were in surgery for five hours. You're in no condition to…"

"No condition to what? Lie on a gurney with electrodes on my head?" John argued, working hard to keep his voice calm, his tone reasonable, despite the constant, angry pain in his stomach. Trying to negotiate from an infirmary bed was a tough enough sell as it was – scrubs and IVs didn't exactly lend an air of authority - and if Colonel Carter thought for a second he was getting too worked up over this, she'd take it as further proof that he wasn't fit enough to do what he was suggesting.

She stood beside his infirmary bed, her hands clasped in front of her, and he saw a flicker of grudging uncertainty pass over her face. He hurried to press his advantage, pointing out reasonably, "All we're talking about here is offering some moral support, being there to talk Rodney through his fears so he can beat this thing, convince it to leave us alone." He looked up at her hopefully, watching the indecision on her face. "If we don't do this… it'll kill him."

"I'm well aware of the risks, John," she chided gently, "and I agree that this technology is our best chance of finding a way to remove the entity. But it doesn't have to be you…"

"It's my responsibility," he argued, just a little sharply. "I'm the one that touched the crystal in the first place and brought this thing back to Atlantis." His voice cracked a little as he spoke and he swallowed thickly, frowning as he looked away from his commanding officer, not wanting her to see, to have to acknowledge, the guilt that gnawed at his soul. Heightmeyer was dead. Rodney would be next if he didn't do something. A jolt of pain shuddered through him and he couldn't hold back a muffled grunt as he tensed, breathing out slow and deliberate as the spasm eased and he let his muscles relax.

"Colonel?" Dr Keller, hovering at the other side of his bed, stepped forward, leaning over him in concern.

"I'm fine," he insisted shortly, deliberately ignoring the doctor's look of frustration as he kept his attention on Colonel Carter.

"Rodney trusts me," he pointed out mildly, forcing a calm that he didn't feel. "And given the options, I think I'm the one he'd feel most comfortable about letting get inside his head."

"He trusts Teyla. She could…"

John grimaced, a mixture of frustration and increasing pain, and asked Carter roughly, "Have you read the mission report from a couple of years back when McKay got trapped in a downed Wraith dart with a marine called Laura Cadman?" He watched as Carter frowned slightly, obviously searching her memory, and saw her wince as comprehension dawned. "Trust me," he told her wryly, "Rodney's not going to feel comfortable with letting a woman inside his head any time soon."

Carter's grimace signalled her reluctant acknowledgement but she wasn't going to give up that easily. "What about Ronon…"

John laugh was kinda choked because the motion pulled at his aching gut, making his voice a little tight and breathy as he asked her in disbelief, "You have _met_ Ronon, right?"

Carter's answering smile was rueful. "Okay, so maybe he's not exactly the caring, sharing type," she admitted, "but he _is_ a pretty fearsome guy. Wouldn't it help Rodney to have a strong, capable fighter there to support him?"

She was reaching, trying to find excuses why someone, anyone, else could do this in John's place and he could see her resolve weakening. "Rodney's not going to be physically fighting this thing," he pointed out. "It control's people's dreams, their subconscious; it's going to drag out Rodney's worst fears and try and scare him to death. Ronon can't fight that. McKay needs someone to talk him through it, keep him thinking straight and not let him get scared. I can do that, Sam!"

Carter was still reluctant, her gaze considering as she looked down at him; he returned her look steadily, focusing on keeping his breathing calm and regular, and just hoped he didn't look half as bad as he felt.

"What do you think, Doctor? Is it safe for him to do this?" Carter turned to Keller, deferring a decision.

Dr Keller's youthful face pulled into an uncertain frown. "I'm not sure about safe," she qualified cautiously and John fought to stifle a sigh of frustration.

"Theoretically there's no danger to his health from using the VR technology; he would be in a controlled environment with his vitals being monitored and medical staff on hand and, as the Colonel said, the process wouldn't require him to do anything physical…"

John could hear the "but" coming.

"…but we know next to nothing about how the entity works, the effect it has on the body, how it actually kills people. And if this technology works the way you hope it will, Colonel Sheppard will be experiencing Dr McKay's dreams – his nightmares – and there's simply no way to tell how this might affect him too…"

"So if there's any sign of a problem, you can unhook me," John interrupted. "Like you said, I'll be being monitored and you'll have staff on hand. If I so much as hiccup, you can disconnect me." He turned his attention back to Carter, "But you've got to let me at least _try_."

He lay there, frustrated and immobile in an infirmary bed, fear for his friend outweighing the burning pain in his gut, while Colonel Carter and Dr Keller shared uncertain looks across his bed, McKay's life hanging on their decision.

* * *

"You have _got_ to be kidding me!"

John could hear McKay's furious voice even through the rubber-lined walls of the isolation room. The volume increased as the doors hushed open and the medical team wheeled his bed into the room. He rolled his head to the side to see Rodney in the center of the room, a chaos of gurneys and equipment being set up around him by hazmat-suited technicians, his head tilted back as he directed his tirade at the occupants of the viewing gallery above. He didn't even look at John as he raised a hand to point at him.

"I know _he's_ insane but what's _your_ excuse?!"

"Rodney…"

McKay simply talked over Colonel Carter's attempt to placate him. "The man has a _bullet hole in him_! He spent half of yesterday bleeding all over an operating theatre! What on earth made you think this was even _close_ to a good idea?!!"

McKay turned suddenly to glare at John; his face was red and flushed, his hair dishevelled as though he'd been running his hands through it, and the naked anger and _fear_ on his friend's face took John by surprise. "Seriously, what in god's name are you _thinking_?!!" Rodney snapped at him.

"You know me, Rodney," John offered McKay an annoying grin, "I prefer to leave the thinking to you…"

Rodney's lips were pressed thinly together, his expression mutinous. "This isn't funny!" he hissed. "You should be in the infirmary!"

John scowled; the pain in his gut was ratcheting back up again and he was not in the mood to go through this argument a third time after what it had taken him to get both Carter and Keller to sign off on this. "I can lie on a gurney just as well here as I can in the infirmary, McKay," he griped testily.

"Oh really? And what if something goes wrong, huh?" Rodney fretted angrily. "What are you gonna do then Mr-I-think-I'm-invincible?"

"Rodney!" John's voice was lower than usual, the effort of pushing through the constant growling pain making his throat tight, his words harsh, and it stopped Rodney in his tracks. "I'll be fine. And you need to calm down. I can do this. _You_ can do this. We're gonna get through this – together." He held Rodney's gaze in a rare moment of seriousness and watched his friend's mouth slant unhappily downwards as, after a long moment of hesitation, he nodded a reluctant acquiescence.

"I'm blaming you when this all goes horribly wrong," he grumbled acidly as he clambered onto the waiting gurney, aiming an evil eye at Colonel Carter in the observation gallery. "He may be a self-sacrificing fool but you should know better." John saw Carter's mouth twist in a grimace even as she gave McKay a half-hearted wave of acknowledgement.

He let himself relax a little bit, some of the tension easing from his body, his head feeling heavy on the soft pillow. He stared unseeingly at the ceiling as technicians fussed around the two gurneys, hooking up leads and cables to monitors and complex pieces of machinery. The pain in his stomach was a constant, growling ache interspersed with unexpected jolts of hot, spiking pain that made his breath hitch in his throat, his body tensing instinctively as he rode out the wave. Dr Keller, her face oddly smooth and plastic-looking in the blue glow of the hazmat helmet lights, peered closely into his face, her hands stilling in the task of attaching electrodes to his temples.

"Colonel Sheppard? Are you alright?"

He made an effort to smooth out his breathing, exhaling carefully through the slowly easing flare of pain. "I'm good."

She frowned. "I don't think so, Colonel." She leaned back from the gurney, looking around to attract a nurse's attention. "Let me get you something for the pain…"

"No!" John wrapped a shaky hand around her wrist, ignoring the startled look on her face. "I need to be able to think straight, doc." The word slipped out without him realising it, tagging itself onto the end of his sentence like it belonged there, a remnant of many a similar argument with Dr Beckett. Carson. Someone else he hadn't been able to save. He'd be damned if he was going to add Rodney to that list.

Keller looked shocked, uncertain. She was a good doctor but she didn't know him the way Carson had, didn't know how to gauge his condition in a glance, regardless of what he said, and John took advantage of that shamelessly. He forced a smile, reassuring her, "It's fine. It just aches a bit." He let his hand drop from her wrist. "Painkillers are just gonna make me drowsy – and I'm no good to McKay asleep."

Her answering smile was hesitant, a little doubtful, but she seemed to accept his assurances and moved her attention back to the sticky little pads on either side of his head. He made sure to keep breathing slow and even until she leant back and moved away.

He looked over to his right to find McKay stretched out on a gurney, looking anything but relaxed; his legs were held stiffly and he didn't seem to know what to do with his arms, settling finally for resting them gingerly across his midriff as he looked across and met John's gaze. Despite his previous bravado, the fear was easily read in McKay's eyes and his voice was unusually quiet, uncertainty robbing the confidence from his speech as he asked, "You sure about this?"

John took a moment to think about that, to assess the heavy lethargy of his body, the generalised ache that spoke of all too recent trauma, the still grumbling pain in his belly, the disturbing, frustrating weakness of his damaged body. His eyes never left McKay's as he murmured, "Not really."

McKay didn't smile. "I'm pretty screwed up," he warned, his voice catching a little.

John had never heard his friend sound so lost and uncertain… afraid, yes. Panicked, certainly. Despairing, sure. But never frail, never… He met Rodney's hollow gaze evenly and answered blandly, calmly, "You're telling me."

McKay looked at him for a long moment before settling his head back on the pillow. John did the same, wincing a little as he wriggled his shoulders slightly, trying to get as comfortable as he could.

"Thanks."

He didn't look over at McKay, keeping his gaze firmly on the ceiling as he took a slow breath and pointed out calmly, "I haven't done anything yet."

"For trying," McKay clarified shortly, some of the usual bite returning to his voice. "And don't say I didn't warn you!"

"Administering sedative." Keller's announcement was quiet, solemn, and John found himself almost holding his breath as McKay slipped into sleep and he waited for something to happen. Staring at the ceiling, he tried to concentrate, willing the wires attached to his head to flow with thoughts and images, to forge a connection.

He shook his head minutely on the pillow, frustration pulling at his aching gut. "Nothing's happening," he complained.

Keller's voice was eerily calm. "He's not dreaming yet."

John closed his eyes, shutting out the distractions of the brightly lit room, trying to block out his awareness of the beeping of machines, the rustle of hazmat suits. He ignored the burn of pain in his belly, the ache of tension in his chest, focusing on clearing his mind, on opening himself up to the machine, waiting for the sudden, intangible connection to forge. The bright lights of the isolation room glared redly through his eyelids as he took a deep breath.

And then there was only blackness.

* * *

_TBC..._


	4. Chapter 4

_This story got away from me again.. so despite the best of intentions, this is not the last chapter.. there is one more yet to come! It was getting so long that I've just had to split it in two. Hope you enjoy..._

_

* * *

_

Light flashed, blindingly white, blurring his vision.

And when it cleared he saw… himself. Only it wasn't him. That smirk, cold and heartless, wasn't his; his voice had never held that vicious, ugly tone. And he would never talk like that to Rodney… Rodney whose broad shoulders were already hunching in defeat, rain soaking his shirt, plastering his hair to his head. John shivered and realised with a kind of numb surprise that he felt cold, wet… the rain felt _real_, dripping through the thick tuft of his hair, cold against his scalp. He could feel the rough wooden seat digging into his legs. He looked down at himself in bemusement; no white scrubs, no IV. He was wearing his BDUs, his fleece top. The pounding rain made the fabric cling to his skin.

Rodney was stuttering, struggling to understand why John – the wrong John – wasn't helping him. He leaned forward, absently noting that the grumble of pain in his stomach was gone. "It's not me, Rodney. Don't listen to him."

Startled, Rodney turned to face him, his face white and pinched as he looked bemusedly between the two Sheppards. John's double – the _entity_ – sat easily in the stern, his legs stretched out comfortably, his arms crossed. His hair and clothes were getting soaked by the rain but he didn't react to it, didn't seem to feel it. He smiled slyly, showing every sign of enjoyment, and told Rodney smugly, "You're pathetic. You might as well jump in."

Rodney twisted in his seat, his face hollow as he looked to John for reassurance.

"Don't be afraid," John told him earnestly.

McKay looked torn, caught between his enemy and his friend, and John could see the beginnings of panic on his friend's face. With a despairing, "I have to get back!" Rodney began pulling desperately at the oars, water streaming down his face as he repeated shakily, "I have to get back. That's my only chance."

The entity, the _thing_ with John's face, ignored John, focusing its attention on the increasingly panicked Rodney. "You're gonna die out here," it grinned happily.

"Shut up!" Frustration was a knot of unease in the pit of his stomach. Rodney was hunched over, struggling to row, and the entity just smirked as John yelled at it. "Don't listen to him, Rodney," John ordered, glaring at his "evil twin".

Some of Rodney's usual belligerence returned, heightened by fear, as he snapped, "That's easy for you to say! Why don't you help me row?!"

John was already rowing before he realised that he didn't actually remember moving; didn't remember climbing forward to sit beside Rodney, didn't remember picking up the oar. Somehow, it didn't seem important. As dreams went, this really wasn't too freaky; a boat, an ocean, the city of Atlantis on the far horizon, shimmering through the sheeting rain. If he'd been asked what he expected to find in McKay's psyche, this wouldn't have been his first choice.

The rain was constant, flattening his hair to his scalp, chilling him to the bone. He pulled rhythmically at the oar, almost enjoying the way his body moved easily, muscles working to twist the stout wooden handle, to dip the broad paddle into the almost smooth surface of the ocean, to pull firmly against the resistance of the water. Somewhere at the back of his mind, he was vaguely aware that his body, his real self, was back in the real world, lying on an infirmary bed, injured, weak and helpless. Somehow, that seemed a lot less real than this boat, this ocean, this rain.

Beside him, Rodney looked around in confusion, his expression bewildered as he belatedly heaved on the second oar, matching his stroke to John's.

"You know," John raised his voice over the constant patter of the rain as the little boat slowly surged forward, "this really isn't as strange as you led me to believe."

Rodney was pale and hunched, his tone of voice unconvinced as, without looking, he pointed over his shoulder and disagreed, "Oh, yeah? What about _that_?"

John was vaguely aware of Rodney turning to look behind him at the same moment he did, and the rowboat's progress slowed suddenly as they both stopped rowing and looked at the clown sitting in the prow. In full make-up. With a bow tie. And a rainbow-coloured wig. It raised its chin and looked down its nose at John as he stared at it.

Okay. So that was freaky. Suddenly this was feeling a lot more like a dream. And he wasn't sure he wanted to know from the depths of whose psyche that particular bit of randomness had been dredged. He and Rodney regarded each other steadily for a moment, caught up in the strangeness of the dream, forgetting for an instant the entity watching from the stern.

John was having to squint against the cold sting of the rain against his face; his hands were starting to feel numb as they gripped the oar. "I hate clowns," he stated firmly, trying to bring some sense of order back to the dream. He looked around for a moment, feeling disturbingly out of control, as Rodney huffed a wordless, panicked agreement. Together they began to pull again at the oars, redoubling their efforts to move the boat towards the far off, shining city.

The entity regarded their efforts calmly, its arms crossed comfortably, a slight smile on its face. John found it hard to look at the thing, to see his own familiar features distorted into such sly malevolence, to see the coldness in those eyes.

"You can paddle all you want," it told them easily. "You're not going anywhere."

Beside him, McKay was white as a sheet, his expression one of despair. "He's right!" he panicked. "I'm gonna die out here!"

John ignored the entity, talking directly to Rodney, trying to project calm and reassurance as he told him, "He wants you to be afraid. Don't give him what he wants. He can't really hurt you."

For the first time since John had entered the dream, the entity acknowledged his presence, turning its attention from Rodney and focusing that malevolent gaze on John. It didn't move, its sly smile didn't change, and yet nevertheless John felt a frisson of fear run through him as the entity said smugly, "That's where you're wrong."

For a long moment John met the entity's gaze defiantly, the smooth wood of the oar twisting and moving rhythmically in his grip as they continued to row steadily. And then the thing that looked like him grinned and there was a swell in the surface of the ocean, a surge of water pushing up from under the boat, rocking them violently from side to side. Rodney shrieked in terror, the oar falling from his hands, and John realised with horror that Rodney already knew exactly what was happening, that this was his fear, his nightmare, and he had been unable to stop it. Water exploded into the air all around them as something massive burst out of the ocean, rising up to swallow the tiny craft. John was thrown backwards from his seat, catching a glimpse of enormous teeth, the air around them turning fetid with the humid breath of something impossibly huge. He was aware of Rodney screaming helplessly as the sky was blotted out…

And he was pulled back into himself with a jerk and a blinding haze of agony as the pain in his gut reasserted itself with renewed vigour. For a moment all he could do was try to breathe through it, his chest tight, his lungs gasping for air. He shuddered, breathing out shakily, and became aware of a high-pitched whining noise. He struggled to lift his head from the pillow, his body feeling sore and heavy, and turned to look over at McKay… only to find the gurney a hive of frenetic movement, hazmat-suited medics crowding around Rodney… who lay limp and unmoving, his shirt pushed up to reveal his bare torso… which jerked and lay still, jerked and lay still, as Keller pressed the defibrillator paddles repeatedly to his chest.

No-one noticed as John struggled to sit up; the medics were all concentrating on Rodney. Grimacing through the pain in his stomach, John lurched to a sitting position, the wires at his temples snagging as he moved. Distractedly, he raised a shaking hand to peel the sticky pads from his skin; they fell away easily, his skin hot and damp under his fingers.

"What happened?" he croaked.

Someone turned around and he realised one of the hazmat suits was Zelenka. Behind the Czech, Keller cried, "Clear!" and Rodney jerked again.

"He's in cardiac arrest," Zelenka said, his voice carefully neutral. John watched in disbelief as Radek moved forward to help, placing an airbag over Rodney's mouth and pushing air into his lungs as Keller began to administer CPR. In what seemed like only seconds she stopped, standing back from the gurney, her expression regretful.

"I'm sorry." She looked straight at John. "I've done all I can. He's dead."

For a moment it felt like the world stopped turning. John couldn't think, couldn't breathe. His mind tried to envision the world with no Rodney McKay in it and it just didn't seem possible. Dazed and disbelieving, he looked up at the observation window and found Teyla, Ronon and Colonel Carter looking down at him solemnly, condemnation in their eyes.

He flinched from those accusing gazes, turned away and found himself face to face with Keller, her face cold and unforgiving. Behind her, Rodney lay pale and still and dead… no. Not real. This couldn't be real. Rodney couldn't be dead, he…

"This is all your fault, John."

The voice startled him and he turned, grimacing at the pull of pain in his stomach, to find Teyla standing beside the bed, regarding him with disgust.

"If you hadn't touched that stupid rock, McKay'd still be alive right now."

Ronon, his face dark with contempt, stood behind Keller.

"I thought you were gonna help him?" Colonel Carter said accusingly. John's head was spinning.

"I tried…" he murmured helplessly.

"Some friend you are." Dr Keller told him scathingly.

Their harsh words were more painful than any bullet wound, salt rubbed into the wounds of his own guilt and failure. They were right; this was his fault. He'd brought this thing to Atlantis and watched it torture and kill his friends. He'd failed Rodney. He'd failed them all.

"Colonel, you've been compromised. I'm relieving you of duty."

He looked away from Carter's unforgiving expression, feeling something in his soul wither and die. She was right. He had no right being here; he'd brought nothing but death and destruction to the people he cared about. He wanted nothing more than to get away from here, get out of this room, away from everyone; from the people he had let down, from the awful, stark reality of Rodney's corpse. He pushed himself shakily forward, tried to swing his legs, heavy and trembling, to the edge of the mattress, and couldn't swallow a hoarse cry as angry pain ripped through him.

Oh god. It felt life a knife in his gut, twisting and probing. Grimacing, he looked down to see a red stain, dark and glistening, soaking rapidly through his white scrubs. A tremor ran though his body and he felt oddly light-headed. Without thinking he pressed a hand against the growing stain, trying to stem the flow of blood, and doubled over as pain roared blackly behind his eyes, making him dizzy.

Hands on his shoulder pushed him unwillingly upright, the motion making him gasp, and he looked up at Keller's face, cold and distant behind the smooth mask of the hazmat suit, as she looked critically at his mid-section.

"Well, you've torn your stitches." Her mouth was twisted in disdain, her tone exasperated. "Probably bleeding internally too." She met his gaze, her expression contemptuous. "Another sterling job, Colonel Sheppard. Well done," she congratulated bitingly.

The sharp tone was jarring, nothing like the Keller he knew, and he looked up at her in confusion. And yet a part of him couldn't help but agree with her; he'd screwed up yet again. There was a part of him that welcomed this pain, that knew he deserved nothing less.

He groaned, the pain sharp enough to make his muscles tense involuntarily, doubling him over again. This time there were no hands to push him back upright. Keller, Carter, even Ronon and Teyla, they all just stood back and watched him suffer. Somewhere, under the fog of pain, something clicked into place and John realised that this wasn't right; this couldn't be real. Gritting his teeth, he struggled to straighten up, raising his head to search the room, to look past Keller, past Ronon… and there it was. Standing in the shadows at the back of the room, its posture relaxed and confident, watching everything with a cold and hateful smile, was a carbon copy of himself. The entity.

"Son of a _bitch_."

* * *

Rodney blinked slowly, wondering vaguely why his chest hurt. His head swam and for a long moment he wasn't entirely sure where he was and why everything was so blurry.

"Oh, it's okay, it's okay. Just try to relax." Dr Keller was leaning over him, her face painted blue by the lights of a hazmat face plate, her voice full of concern and reassurance.

Feeling oddly uncoordinated, he lifted his head a little to look around him, managed to get his mouth working, and asked blearily, "What's going on?"

Keller's expression was grave as she told him earnestly, "You were in cardiac arrest."

And it all came rushing back; the boat, the rain, Sheppard… no, _two_ Sheppards. And the darkness swallowing him as the whale exploded out of the water, the tiny, fragile boat swirling into the black heat and stench of its gullet…He'd been _dead_. He'd been certain that he was dead and yet… he wasn't. But why? The entity had intended to kill him; the whale attack should have finished him. But it hadn't. So why did the entity not finish the job? Why would it… unless…

Adrenalin flooded through him, pushing aside the lingering confusion, and fear tightened in his stomach as asked Keller urgently, "The entity?"

Zelenka spoke up from the other side of the bed, his tone subdued as he confirmed Rodney's worst fear, "It's in Colonel Sheppard."

Rodney struggled to coordinate his limbs, to raise his head enough to look across the room to the infirmary bed where Colonel Sheppard lay, limp and unmoving, his skin clammy and pale.

"Oh no," Rodney murmured hopelessly.

* * *

Anger was like a shot of adrenalin, burning hotly in his veins, giving him the strength to push himself to his feet. The pain in his stomach almost doubled him over, his legs trembling under him, but he growled his defiance, biting his lip to straighten and face his nemesis.

"You can quit now," he told it, his voice rasping in his throat. "I'm not afraid of you."

It just smiled at him, its expression sly and calculating. It eyes seemed to penetrate right through to his soul and his bravado faltered as he realised it was in his head; it could see _everything_.

"Oh, yes you are," the entity smirked knowingly. "I'm the one thing you _are_ afraid of." It stepped away from the wall, stalking towards him with a calm, implacable menace. Its smile was one of malicious enjoyment, every word a precise, deliberate blow. "You failed your friends," it told him. "You brought this on them and there is _nothing_ you can do to stop it."

Hot shame and fury burned through him and his fists clenched with rage, the desire to lash out and wipe the smug smile from the thing's face, to make it shut up, make it feel the pain _he_ felt. He lurched forward, adrenalin lending strength to a wild swing that the entity easily blocked. It countered with a backhand to the face that spun him from his feet, the impact jarring through his entire body, awakening a wash of fire that spread outwards from his belly, making him howl as he writhed helplessly on the floor, his body trying to curl in on itself.

He found himself panting with the pain, his body trembling and weak, refusing to respond to his commands. Booted feet stepped firmly into view and he strained to lift his head, looking up to see the entity standing over him, its mouth twisted in a cruel parody of a smile. His legs jerked spasmodically as he tried to move, to get away, but the thing was already leaning forward, reaching for him, and John couldn't avoid the rush of fear, the instinctive flinch from its touch as it bunched its fist in his scrubs top and lifted.

_

* * *

TBC..._


	5. Chapter 5

_Oooops. Um. It got away from me yet again. Yes, there will be yet one more chapter. But that chapter is very very very very nearly done and this fic will be completed very soon - I promise:D_

_All feedback gratefully received..._

* * *

Rodney felt shaky, sore and queasy as hell… and he wasn't sure how much of that was from the nightmare and the defibrillation and how much from the sheer terror as he watched John Sheppard dying. He lay half-propped up on the gurney, his shirt still rucked up from Keller's ministrations, unable to take his eyes from John's still, pale form as monitors beeped and shrilled alarms and Keller looked from readout to readout, her face tight with concern, and issued terse commands to her team.

"Doctor, what's happening?"

Sam was still in the observation room, Teyla and Ronon crowded beside her, all of them watching helplessly, their fear for Sheppard written clearly on their faces.

"His heart rate is dangerously high," Keller didn't look away from the monitors as she answered shortly, "and his blood pressure is dropping rapidly. Something is very wrong!"

"Can you wake him up?"

Keller looked up at the plate glass windows of the observation room, sharing a significant look with Carter and Rodney felt a twist of bitter recrimination as he recalled that that was how Sheppard had talked them into letting him take this stupid risk, on the proviso that they would simply wake him up if anything went wrong. Under different circumstances, Rodney would tell them, "I told you so."

Keller's voice shared his bitterness as she told Carter regretfully, "I could try, but in his physical state, that could make things worse."

"Yes, and the entity would still be in him."

The entity. Yes, the entity. Zelenka's comment sparked a train of thought in Rodney and he could have kissed the little scientist as his superior intellect took that thought and extrapolated it and suddenly he _knew_; he knew what had happened, he knew why he wasn't dead and he knew the only way to save Sheppard.

He rolled a cable nervously between his fingers and blurted, "Hook me up to him again."

"What?" Zelenka and Keller's voices overlapped each other as they both turned to look at him in surprise.

"It's electricity," he told them impatiently. "It's vulnerable to electric shock!"

"McKay…"

He looked up at the control room earnestly, his words tumbling over each other impatiently as he tried to explain. "Don't you see? That's why I'm not dead! It _killed me_ in my dream – my heart stopped and Dr Keller used the defibrillator to restart it. Why did that happen? Why didn't the entity stay around to finish me off, make sure I was dead? Because of the _electricity_!"

He looked around wildly, trying to make them, all of them, see. "We know this thing is a form of energy and it travels through conductive material, just like electricity. It's _made of_ energy – hitting it with another form of energy is like… like… well, I don't know what it's like but it _hurts_ it. It interferes with its ability to function and that's what made it leave me and jump into Sheppard!"

Carter's face was thoughtful. "You could be right, McKay. So if we were to shock Colonel Sheppard…"

Keller was still preoccupied with Sheppard, her attention switching between the readouts on the monitors and the bed as she lifted Sheppard's IV-festooned arm out of the way and pulled the blankets down from his chest, but she was listening to the conversation and already shaking her head, "I don't think that's a good idea," she warned them. "In the Colonel's condition, an electric shock could kill him."

"Well, that thing's killing him _now_," Ronon growled.

"Oh, no..." Teyla's murmur of despair precisely echoed the sinking feeling in Rodney's stomach as Keller pulled back the blankets over Sheppard's stomach to reveal a gory splash of red where there should have been white; blood soaking through Sheppard's scrubs, dark and glistening.

Rodney thought this was possibly the first time he'd ever heard Dr Keller actually curse as she flung the blankets carelessly back and hurriedly pressed her hands to Sheppard's abdomen, palpating carefully.

"Abdomen's rigid. He's bleeding internally." Her face was tight and anxious, urgency cracking in her voice. "We need to get him into surgery right now. Marie, I need you to prep the OR…"

"Doctor, you can't!" Carter's warning stopped Keller in her tracks, her face turning to the observation lounge in dismay.

Sam's face was regretful as she laid it out in simple terms. "You can't take him out of this room. If you do, the entity is free to escape into the conduits again and spread who knows where in the city, infect more people. _Kill_ more people. I can't allow that."

Even separated by a pane of glass, Rodney flinched as Ronon shoved away from the window in frustration. "Then _do_ something!" he snarled at Sam.

Keller looked at Carter, Carter looked at McKay and McKay looked at his friend bleeding to death because he'd tried to save Rodney's life. "Hook me up to him again," he repeated.

* * *

The entity was ridiculously, inhumanly strong, lifting John from the floor as though he weighed nothing, a limp, sagging ragdoll suspended from a handful of scrubs top, the edges of the fabric biting sharply into his neck and armpits as it pulled tight under his weight. The thing dragged him upright, his legs tangling uselessly under him, and he found himself meeting its cold, malevolent gaze from mere inches away. It smiled widely as it looked at him, looked through him, looked _into_ him and John felt his blood turn to ice as the realisation hit him that this thing was in control of the dream; it could do whatever it wanted, could be as strong and as fast as it wanted, could withstand anything he could throw at it. It was manipulating this reality and nothing he could do would be enough to defeat it. The entity was going to kill him, like it killed Kate, like it killed Rodney. Oddly, with that realisation came a kind of peace, a sort of acceptance… and a cold determination; that he would be the last person in Atlantis that this thing killed. He had brought this thing to Atlantis and begun this nightmare and he would be the one to end it. The entity was trapped with him in the isolation room; there was nowhere else to go. When he died; so did it.

He struggled to get his feet under him, pulling strength from nothing more than sheer bloody-minded stubbornness, and the entity grinned and suddenly twisted, bunching its arm and lifting, swinging him around and suddenly letting go, sending him flying helplessly at the solid wall. He cringed in anticipation of an impact that didn't come and then he was falling, limbs flailing uselessly… and _then_ came impact, bone-breakingly, stunningly hard impact, not with a wall but a floor. He cried out as he hit the floor and rolled helplessly, momentum carrying him into an uncontrolled slide. His back slammed into something, stopping him dead, and he lay still, stunned and dizzy, wheezing desperately for breath, the fire in his stomach like a knife twisting inside him.

He sucked in a deep breath and the effort left him coughing, every spasm stoking the fire that burned in his gut. The paroxysm subsided and he took a careful, shallow breath, taking in air in short, too shallow gasps as he struggled to raise his head and make sense of his surroundings. Right in front of his nose was the floor, brown and scuffed with boot treads, further away the floor met up with pale green walls, everything lit with a bluish, rippling light. He lifted his head from the floor and found himself looking at the active gate, its shimmering event horizon the only source of light in the darkened space. The gate room. He was in the gate room, lying at the foot of the stairs.

Movement drew his eye as, soundlessly, the entity stepped through a solid wall into the room. It smiled as it stalked deliberately towards him.

John groaned and forced himself to move, biting his lip against the pain as he pushed himself shakily to his hands and knees. His body was stiff and aching, sluggish and slow; he had barely struggled to his feet, hunched over from the pain in his gut, when the entity reached him. It didn't hesitate, a smile of enjoyment on its face as it lashed out. He managed to block the first blow, the force of it slamming against his hastily raised arm with incredible force. The second blow caught him square across the jaw and he staggered, dropping to his hands and knees with his head spinning, the world fading in and out around him.

He shook his head, trying to clear it, and then there was a sudden, sickening impact against his midriff, a blow that drove the breath from his lungs and caused an all-encompassing wave of pain that whited out his world. He was only vaguely aware of the force of the blow lifting and flipping him, his back slamming into the ground. He was lost in a sea of fire, pain that thrummed through every nerve in his body, burning him, consuming him. Slowly, the world faded from white into grey and gradually resolved into a ceiling high above and he became aware that the stuttering, hiccupping sound he could hear was his own desperate attempts to breathe.

A black-clad figure loomed into view, blocking off his view of the ceiling; his own face staring down at him with eyes empty of anything but malice and twisted enjoyment. It grinned as it nudged him less than gently with a booted foot. John sucked in a breath and the thing just watched, almost dispassionately, like a child tormenting a bug. It was waiting, he realised, waiting for him to get up. Apparently it was no fun to kill something that wasn't at least trying to survive.

Well, forget it. The damn thing was going to kill him anyway. And then this would be over. For everyone. They'd be safe. He tried to move, struggled to coordinate his body enough to roll over, to turn his back to his tormentor. The effort robbed him of what little strength he had remaining and left him sobbing for breath, curling around the agony that was his stomach. He pressed a hand to his abdomen, the material of his scrubs damp and sticky under his skin.

"Get up," the entity ordered coldly from behind him.

"Come on, John. _Fight!_" It yelled its demand.

To hell with it. He was through playing this thing's game.

"No," he whispered brokenly. "That's what you want."

Its boot nudged the small of his back as it leaned in close, making him shudder as it reminded him coldly, gleefully, "It's your fault Heightmeyer's dead. Your fault _McKay_ is dead."

He flinched at that, curling in on himself miserably, their losses a pain worse even than the fire in his belly. The entity was right. It was his fault they were dead. His fault Rodney…

"I'm not dead!"

The familiar voice sent a spike of despair through John, fearing the entity had found another way to torment him, but to his surprise, his double reacted with anger to the new addition to the dream, abandoning its attack on John and moving away.

Not sure what to think, what to believe, John raised his head in time to see the entity slam McKay – or something that looked like McKay – against a wall. John couldn't see its face but he could hear the cold certainty in its voice as it told Rodney, "You can't win."

And if it wasn't McKay then it sounded _exactly_ like him, right down to the defiant smugness in his voice, that utter conviction that he was right, as he spat out, "Yes we can. You're vulnerable to electric shock. That's why I'm still alive. You left before you could finish the job."

Before John could process that, make any sense of what maybe-Rodney had said, the entity roared with pain and crackling, arcing electricity rippled up and down its body. John watched from the floor in disbelief as the entity staggered backwards, losing its hold on Rodney, its very shape seeming to twist and distort momentarily.

For a fraction of a second, John imagined he could feel an echo of that crackling power, a shiver of electricity that tingled through him and left him oddly shaken. He struggled to get up, one hand still pressed to his stomach as he tried to push himself upright with his other arm. He voice came out hoarse as he asked Rodney, "What the hell was that?!"

* * *

"Clear!"

As her team stepped back, hands held up clear of Colonel Sheppard's body, Jennifer Keller reluctantly placed the defibrillator paddles again to her patient's lower torso. This was such a bad idea, such an incredibly bad idea. The scrubs top pushed up to expose the Colonel's torso was soaked through with blood and his abdomen was smeared with it; she had struggled to find a place to position the paddles that was clear of his abdominal injury and still far enough away from his heart to – hopefully - lesson the impact of the shock on his cardiac function. But it was still far from ideal. She pressed the controls to administer the shock and winced as Sheppard's body spasmed, his back arching up from the bed, the forced tension of his muscles almost certainly pulling further at his already torn stitches and risking untold damage to his untreated internal injuries.

He slumped back to the bed, his body boneless and limp, and her team moved quickly back into place, pressing a bag and mask over his face, hanging another unit of blood, checking blood pressure and pulse rate; doing everything they could to keep him alive.

* * *

Electricity sparked and fizzed again, crawling in crackling arcs up and down the entity's body, arcing like lightning in the air around it as it screamed and fell to its knees. And again, an echo of that lightning trembled through John's body, shivering his muscles.

Rodney looked over at him and the scientist's face was pale and shocked. John still wasn't entirely sure this was real, any more real than anything else he'd experienced in this dreamscape. Was Rodney really alive? Could he dare to hope that that part of the dream had been a lie as well, just another way for the entity to torture him? He looked over at his stunned double, swaying on its knees on the gate room floor, and fresh anger surged through him at the thought of what this thing had done to them, what it had put his friends through.

Grimacing, he rolled painfully to his knees, one hand steadying him as he kept the other clutched to his stomach.

"Sheppard? Are you…?"

Rodney's plaintive query trailed off as John pushed himself unsteadily to his feet and wobbled for a moment, his heady spinning dizzily. With a snarl that was part teeth-grinding pain, part strengthening anger, John pushed himself into motion, his gait hunched and stumbling, and staggered the few steps to bring him alongside the entity. The thing was dazed, stunned, it face slack and its gaze oddly vacant as it turned its head slowly, struggling to focus on him. John felt a wave of disgust and hatred wash through him as he looked down at the thing that had tortured and killed his friends – using his face.

Echoing the entity's actions in the isolation room, he reached down and grabbed a handful of its shirt, pulling the weakened creature unsteadily to its feet. The effort took more out of him than he expected and he swayed for a moment, his fist in the entity's shirt holding himself up as much as holding the creature in place.

"John…"

He ignored Rodney's concern, ignored everything but the desire – the need – to finish this, to stop this thing from hurting anyone else. With a yell of fury, he leaned backwards, his weight pulling the entity with him, sending the two of them staggering in an uneven pirouette towards the active gate. Letting momentum carry them, John kept his hand clenched in the fabric of his double's shirt, the entity's cold, vacant eyes inches from his own as they swung around, each of them stumbling, barely upright. He thought he saw a spark of life return to those eyes, a hint of the entity's malicious smile twisting the face that looked like his, but it was too late; as they stumbled towards the gate, John let go of the entity's shirt with a push and it staggered helplessly backwards, hopelessly off-balance, its arms flailing as momentum carried it smoothly into the embrace of the rippling event horizon.

The entity vanished through the shimmering surface with a faint, familiar sucking sound and was gone. Breathing heavily, John swayed on his feet, staring blindly at the gate, unable to quite believe that it was really over. His legs trembled under him and fatigue weighed heavy in his limbs. Oddly enough, the pain didn't seem to be so bad now, everything feeling almost numb. He looked down jerkily, frowning in confusion, and was almost surprised to find his scrubs still wet with blood, the dark red stain bigger than ever. He wobbled suddenly and wasn't surprised when his knees gave way. It didn't hurt when he hit the floor. Everything was distant, the faint rippling noise of the gate, the rasping sound of his own breath, Rodney yelling his name.

He was only vaguely aware of Rodney's panicked face looming into view over him, of his head being gently lifted from the floor and rested against warm, solid flesh, of his friend's voice, angry and broken, telling him, "You are not going to die, dammit. You saved me and it's my turn to save you and you are _not_ going to screw up the equation by dying on me!! You hear me, Sheppard?! Stay with me, Sheppard!"

He felt a vague regret at letting Rodney down, letting everyone down, and then the darkness hovering at the edges of his vision rose up and swallowed him whole.

* * *

_TBC..._


	6. Chapter 6

_It's finally finished! This fic just took on a life of its own but hopefully the journey has been worth it... thanks to everyone who has read and those who have been kind enough to comment - hope you enjoy the conclusion._

* * *

Rodney came back to himself with a jolt and a moment of blankness as his brain caught up to the transition from dream world to real world.

"He's crashing!"

Keller's shout snapped him out of the daze and memory came flooding back; Sheppard in blood-stained scrubs, huddled brokenly on the floor as the entity gloated threateningly over him, the relief as his plan had worked and the electric shock had stunned and weakened the creature, John climbing determinedly to his feet and dragging the entity towards the gate, almost throwing the thing through the active event horizon… and John lying crumpled on the gate room floor, cradled in Rodney's arms, his eyes open but unseeing, his face pale and bloodless, his white scrubs stained increasingly red.

Rodney lifted his head from the pillow in a panic, twisting around to look across at Sheppard's infirmary bed, only to see it being wheeled hurriedly out of the room, Keller kneeling astride it with her elbows locked, pumping rhythmically at John's chest, hazmat-suited medics running alongside holding up bags of blood and IV fluid. The bed rattled as it was rolled through the door and swung sharply around the corner and before Rodney had a chance to move or react, or even to ask if Sheppard was going to be okay, the bed and its occupant were gone from view.

Adrenalin reduced his aches and pains, the soreness in his chest, to mere background noise and Rodney struggled to push himself into a sitting position on the gurney; a faint glow caught his eye and he twisted his head around to see Zelenka carefully disconnecting the containment unit in which sat a bright, shining crystal. The entity. Back where it came from. Unable to harm anyone else. Thanks to Sheppard. He shuddered; the dream still felt vivid and real, he could still feel the pulse of Sheppard's blood seeping hotly through his hands. He shivered, reminding himself it hadn't been real. But still, he couldn't shake a distant feeling of surprise when he looked down at his hands and found them clean and pale, not stained with red.

"McKay? How are you doing?"

He looked up at Carter as he clambered inelegantly from the gurney, pulling the pads and wires from his temples, ignoring the protestations of the remaining medics.

"I'm going to the infirmary," he answered shortly. Sam stood alone in the observation room, the window beside her empty; Rodney knew Teyla and Ronon would have headed straight for the infirmary themselves as soon as they'd seen he was alright.

"McKay, you were in cardiac arrest not half an hour ago..." Sam's protest was weary, half-hearted, as though she knew full well he'd dismiss it but felt she should try anyway. Rodney knew that, in his position, if it were say Teal'c or Daniel fighting for life, she'd be halfway to the infirmary already. He also knew she'd be right behind him on the way to check on Sheppard.

Teyla and Ronon met him outside the infirmary, the Satedan clapping him on the back in wordless acknowledgement, Teyla's hand warm and soft on his arm, her eyes saying more than words ever could as she greeted him quietly, "Rodney."

"How is he?" The adrenalin was fading now and the aches and pain were returning with a vengeance; he was surprised to find that his voice shook a little.

"They have taken him into surgery." It was Teyla who answered but the non-committal phrasing had come straight from Keller, he was sure. He settled himself heavily into one of the chairs that had been left permanently set up outside the infirmary, Teyla arranging herself gracefully on the seat beside him as they settled in for what he knew was going to be a long and painful wait. Ronon, restless as ever, leaned against the wall. The tall ex-Runner wasn't good at waiting and Rodney knew he wouldn't sit down until he knew that Sheppard was going to be okay. _If_ Sheppard was going to be okay. Please god, let Sheppard be okay. They'd lost too many already.

* * *

He surfaced out of a warm, muffled numbness to the sound of low, murmured voices. He couldn't make out the words but the sounds were somehow familiar, somehow comforting. He floated for a while, letting the voices wash over him.

He didn't know how long he drifted but after a time the voices became clearer, words starting to filter through.

"_Did you see that?"_

"_I… am not certain. To what do you refer?"_

"_He moved! His finger twitched. I'm sure of it!"_

"_I didn't see anything move."_

"_Well, he moved! You saw it, didn't you, Teyla?"_

Teyla. The name was familiar too. He knew that name…

"_I do not believe so. I am sorry, Rodney. Perhaps you were mistaken, we are all tired…"_

Rodney. He knew that name too. Rodney was…

The comfortable numbness was fading now, memory starting to filter back, and he felt a tightness in his chest as he remembered seeing Rodney's body, jerking hopelessly on a gurney before laying still… so still. Rodney was dead. But then he wasn't. Was he? He'd been in the gate room. But that had been a dream. But the isolation room had been a dream too… hadn't it? What was real and what was dream – the lines were blurred and confusing. Was _this_ real?

"_There! See! His eyelids fluttered. He definitely moved! He's waking up!"_

"_Rodney…"_

Waking up? Was he still dreaming then? Would the voices fade if he opened his eyes? He didn't want to voices to go, didn't want to be alone again. If Rodney was alive only in dreams, then he'd rather keep dreaming. He tried to let himself drift again, to slip back into the easy numbness, but the numbness wouldn't come… instead the world got sharper; he became aware of beeps and hissing behind the voices, a sterile, antiseptic scene to the air, and a low, muted ache in his stomach, a heavy leadenness to his body.

He frowned, wanting the numbness back, wanting the dream to continue.

"_McKay's right. He moved. He's waking up."_

"_John? Can you hear me, John?"_

The voice was soft and warm and familiar and he wanted so much for it to be real but it was a dream, just a dream, and the dream was slipping away from him. He groaned in protest but no sound came out, his throat working soundlessly.

"_Ronon, get Keller!"_

Rodney. No, Rodney was dead. But then he came back…

"_Colonel Sheppard? Can you open your eyes for me, Colonel?"_

Dr Keller. She blamed him for Rodney's death. She'd stood and watched him bleed… no, that was a dream. Wasn't it? But his stomach hurt, so _that_ wasn't a dream…

"_Colonel? I need you to wake up now, John."_

Ngh. Fingers tapping on his cheek. It felt real. He moaned, tried to move his head away from the touch; the fingers followed, tapping again gently. Why would he dream that? His head was spinning, his thoughts jumbled, and the heavy lassitude of his body was slowly developing into a generalised, all-over ache. He didn't think he'd dream that.

"_Come on, Sheppard. Stop being such a drama queen and just wake up already."_

"_Rodney!"_

The voices were so familiar; the acerbic impatience of McKay, the gently chiding reproof of Teyla. They were comforting, reassuring, and he wanted more than anything to hang on to that reassurance.

Opening his eyes seemed to take far more energy than it should. It took him several attempts.

"Hey," He found Keller leaning over him, a gentle smile on her face. "Welcome back, Colonel."

He blinked drowsily, his breath misting inside an oxygen mask. He remembered an unsmiling Keller, her gaze accusing, and he frowned uncertainly. This Keller's smile faded, morphing into concern, "How are you feeling?" she queried anxiously. "Do you have any pain?"

His mouth felt dry, his tongue thick and clumsy. He swallowed and tried to lick some moisture back into his lips. Keller's eyes were drawn to the movement and she nodded briefly. "Let me get you some ice chips," she murmured as she leaned back, disappearing from his field of vision.

A light touch on his arm, a small, warm hand laid gently on his bare skin, and he rolled his head sluggishly to find his team clustered around the bed; all of them – Teyla, Ronon… and McKay.

Teyla's hand squeezed his arm lightly, her relieved smile lighting up her face. "It is good to see you awake, John," she smiled. She looked tired, he realised. They all did, their eyes hollow, their faces drawn. He looked up at McKay and saw the evidence of fatigue in the scientist's washed-out complexion, the dark shadows under his eyes. A memory surfaced of McKay yet paler still, white and motionless, limp and cold on a gurney. John shuddered and squeezed his eyes shut, willing the memory away. It hadn't been real. Had it? Suddenly he was scared that when he opened his eyes, Rodney would be gone, that _this_ would be the dream and he'd wake up to find himself back in the nightmare; only the nightmare would be real.

"John?" Teyla's voice was coloured with concern, her hand squeezing his arm.

"What's wrong with him?" John breathed shallowly, fear tightening his chest as he remembered the disgust in Ronon's voice as he'd blamed him for McKay's death. But McKay wasn't dead… he'd been in the gate room and he was here now… and he'd been cold and dead on a gurney…

"Move."

Rodney's voice was demanding, but not unkind, and suddenly the warmth of Teyla's hand was gone from his arm, only to be replaced by a bigger hand, the skin cooler, picking up John's hand, fingers wrapping around to grip firmly.

"Hey." Rodney's voice was very near now, almost whispering in John's ear. "I'm not dead. I mean it, Sheppard. This is real and I'm not dead and we won, that thing is gone for good."

John breathed in shakily, wanting to believe that more than anything…

McKay's hand squeezed his – it felt so real, so very real – and some of the usual arrogance and sharp edge crept back into his voice as told John, "And if you ever do something that stupid again, I'll… well, I'm not coming in to save you next time, that's for sure. I told you right at the start that it was a stupid idea but no, Mr "It's-just-a-flesh-wound" knows better and ends up haemorrhaging all over the isolation room and…"

John couldn't help smiling woozily as McKay's acerbic litany of complaint increased in pitch and tempo as the scientist got increasingly worked up, the sound more familiar, more reassuring than any comforting platitudes. John had long since stopped listening to the actual content of the tirade as he opened his eyes to see Ronon and Teyla grinning tolerantly down at him. This was real. This was definitely real. McKay had warmed to his theme and it took him a moment or two to notice that John was awake and at least vaguely alert; his rant trailing off suddenly with an affronted, "Oh". John tried not to laugh as Rodney looked uncomfortable for a moment and then seemed to belatedly realise that he was still holding John's hand, dropping it as though it had scalded him.

John had a suspicion the smile on his face was rather goofy but he couldn't bring himself to care and besides he figured he could blame it on the drugs. He was pretty certain he was on some fairly good drugs; his head still felt like it was stuffed with cotton wool and he felt oddly detached from his body, his limbs too heavy to even think about moving, the gentle ache in his stomach only a memory of the sharp pains he remembered all too clearly from before.

"Here you go, Colonel." Keller returned with a cup of ice chips, leaning over him once more to gently lift the mask from his face, letting it hang down under his chin as she carefully slipped a thin sliver of ice between his lips. The ice melted deliciously in his mouth, cool water trickling down his parched throat. He swallowed, licking his lips, and Keller slowly fed him another couple of chips before setting the cup aside and, to his chagrin, settling the oxygen mask back over his face. He thought vaguely about lifting a hand to remove it but was surprised to find his arm didn't want to move; he could barely lift it an inch and it felt like it weighed a ton. He looked down at the offending limb in annoyance and was surprised to find it festooned with IVs, wrapped in tape and topped off with a pulse-ox meter. He rolled his head woozily, taking a moment to get a proper look at himself; the white scrubs were gone, replaced by one of the dreaded, open-backed gowns, and, much as he hated the gowns, he couldn't say he was sorry to see the back of the scrubs. The memory of the deep crimson stain across the white fabric, and the accompanying pain, had him struggling to lift his head from the pillow to peer down at his stomach. It was hidden under starched infirmary sheets and the effort of lifting his head was such that he couldn't hold it for more than a few seconds. He let it flop back to the pillow with a sigh and found himself suddenly struggling to keep his eyes open, a bone-weary fatigue washing over him.

He drifted woozily for a few moments, only half listening to the murmur of voices around him, as Keller fussed around the bed, checking readings and fiddling with tubes and wires.

"Is he okay?" Rodney's voice was unusually subdued.

Having a vested interest in the answer himself, John made an effort to shake off the lethargy and pay attention.

"He's just tired, Rodney," Keller explained. "It's not surprising after what he's been through."

What _had_ he been through, John wondered vaguely. His memories were jumbled, confusing. McKay's death, his fight with the entity… none of that had been real. He realised belatedly that he had no idea what had happened, or even how much time had passed, between his first entering McKay's dream and waking up here in the infirmary.

He blinked drowsily, trying to clear his head, and tried to ask Keller for an explanation but his voice came out surprisingly weak, the oxygen mask muffling his words. He tried again to lift his arm and had even less success.

"Dr Keller…" Teyla, bless her heart, was quick to notice his frustration. She smiled down at him encouragingly as Keller leaned over and carefully removed the oxygen mask.

"How are you feeling, Colonel?" she asked gently.

He swallowed, tried to clear his throat, but his voice still came out a cracked and hoarse whisper. "I'm good."

He was vaguely aware of Rodney rolling his eyes in disgust.

"What happened?" he asked Keller.

Keller's face was grave. "You had some complications with your abdominal wound, Colonel," she informed him. "It would appear you somehow tore some stitches and you were bleeding internally…"

He shook his head sluggishly, frowning in confusion. "That… was dream…" he mumbled.

"I'm afraid not, Colonel." Keller glanced over at Rodney as she told John, "I can't speak to what you saw in your dream, but the complications you experienced were very real." A flicker of regret passed over her face as she admitted, "We weren't able to get you into surgery without risking exposing the rest of the base to the entity… by the time Dr McKay's idea to remove the entity was successful, you'd lost a significant amount of blood and had gone into cardiac arrest..."

He could hear the hint of self-recrimination in her voice and he made an effort to catch and hold her gaze, to put as much conviction as he could into the husky croak of his voice as he told her seriously, "You did the right thing, doc."

Keller's mouth twisted noncommittally but some of the tension eased from her shoulders. "Lucky for us, you're pretty stubborn," she smiled ruefully. "It was touch and go for a while there, and you're gonna be keeping us company here in the infirmary for some time…" Her lips quirked at his automatic groan of protest. "… but you've come through the surgery well and you should make a full recovery. What you need most right now is lots of rest and absolutely no exertion of any kind."

She looked around sternly at his team with that comment and, predictably, McKay took immediate offence, demanding, "And what's that supposed to mean?!"

"Exactly what it sounds like," Keller countered. "No PDA, no paperwork, no mission briefings, no situation updates, _absolutely_ no radio." She included John in her comprehensive glare, adding, "No matter how much he begs, threatens or blackmails."

John really didn't feel that was fair; he'd only used blackmail once and that had been on Kavanaugh… who'd had no reason to be in the infirmary at the time anyway and had snuck in under a flimsy pretext solely to smirk at what he'd considered to be John's misfortune.

McKay was already arguing his own innocence and placing any blame squarely on John's shoulders, Teyla rolling her eyes when she thought no-one was looking, and Ronon was simply grinning, his arms crossed over his chest, his hip propped casually against the foot of John's bed. It was all so familiar and comforting and John felt an odd kind of warmth well up deep inside him. In that cold, dark place in his soul from which the entity had pulled out and paraded his deepest fears, something shifted, and those fears seemed a little less scary, a little easier to bear, when he had his friends around him.

A yawn took him by surprise and he found himself jerking out of a half-doze to the sound of Keller trying to persuade his team to leave him to get some rest.

"Nno," he mumbled. "Stay? Please?" Complete sentences were more than he could manage right now but Keller seemed to get the point just fine.

"Okay," she conceded. "They can stay and keep you company. But you need to rest, Colonel. No staying awake all hours talking."

"Notgnbeprblem…" he slurred, already hovering on the edge of sleep. He struggled to keep his eyes open long enough to watch his team settle back into their seats beside his bed, their faces worn but happy, smiling warmly down at him as he blinked heavily. His body felt warm and numb, Keller's drugs masking any discomfort, leaving him feeling just generally exhausted. He drifted into sleep to background of low conversation amongst his friends overlaid by Keller's announcement that she was going to go and inform Colonel Carter that he had awoken.

* * *

Teyla wasn't entirely surprised when her seemingly aimless wandering brought her eventually to the doors to the infirmary. She looked at her watch and hesitated a moment, wondering if she should just go back to her room; it was late, the middle of this planet's night cycle, and she really should be asleep. Yet somehow, this night, her comfortable bed with its traditional Athosian blankets was not a comforting prospect.

The recent days' events weighed heavily on her mind, as she knew they did for her team also. She, Ronon and Rodney had spent several hours in the infirmary, watching John sleep, before Dr Keller had finally insisted they all return to their quarters and get some rest. In those long hours, their desultory, muted conversation had covered many subjects… and yet, like a Bhraga returning each season to the hunting grounds of its forebears, had kept coming back to the subject of dreams, of the nightmares the entity had dredged from their subconscious to torture them with. She had listened with an ache in her heart to Rodney's descriptions of what he had seen of John's dream and had haltingly recounted the terror of her own experience, had shuddered at Ronon's depiction of a city abandoned and soulless and struggled to understand Rodney's attempts to explain what a clown was. Once or twice, as they spoke quietly, John had shifted in his bed, his eyes opening suddenly, his breath shallow and fast, and she knew that he too was remembering, reliving those dreams. He'd been drowsy still, but anxious, his eyes searching out their familiar faces before the tension would relax from his body and let him slide back into healing sleep. For a while after once such awakening, she had sat with her hand wrapped around his, wordlessly providing the reassurance he sought even as he slumbered.

Alone in her quarters, in the dark of night, she found herself craving that same reassurance. With a rueful sigh, she waved her hand over the sensor and the infirmary doors slid open with a soft hum. The main room was dimly lit, the lighting turned down low, monitors and readouts glowing in the semi-darkness. John's bed was at the back of the room, in a secluded corner away from the bustle of the main thoroughfare and she trod softly past the two or three occupied beds in the main part of the infirmary.

She was not overly surprised to find John awake, despite the late hour, the glow from the monitors reflected in heavy-lidded eyes. He looked somehow lost and alone, his eyes dark in a face pale and drawn, his body, usually so full of energy and vitality, swaddled in thick blankets, wires and tubes snaking to and from the bed. A tired smile spread across his face as she came into view. The chairs they had arranged around his bed as they had sat waiting for him to awaken, to know that he would be alright this time, were still scattered nearby and she pulled one to her, setting it comfortably beside the bed.

"Couldn't sleep," she said simply as she sat down, leaning forward to take his hand in hers.

"Yeah, me too," he whispered, his voice still hoarse and weak.

They sat like that, in companionable silence, for a while, John's hand warm in hers, his eyes growing progressively drowsy. She was finally starting to feel sleepy herself when the infirmary doors hummed open and, a moment later, Rodney appeared, munching on a power bar as he too pulled up a chair.

"Thought I'd have a little snack before I..." he began to explain, gesturing with the half-eaten snack bar.

"Yeah," Sheppard interrupted drowsily. "We couldn't sleep either."

Rodney was still eating his power bar when Ronon spun a chair the wrong way round and straddled it, the rangy Satedan not feeling the need for explanations, and Teyla was aware of a certain tension relaxing from John's body, a drowsy smile growing on his face as his team got comfortable. He was nearly asleep when Dr Keller and Colonel Carter arrived, the two women exchanging muted greetings with the team, Dr Keller taking a moment to check the monitors and note her findings before also arranging a chair beside Colonel Sheppard's bed.

The atmosphere in their little corner of the infirmary was subdued, people talking seldom, conversing only in whispers, and Teyla felt the fatigue of recent days catching up to her, her body telling her it needed rest. John's hand felt limp in hers and she looked across to find him comfortably asleep, a slight smile on his lips. As she watched tiredly, her friends slowly settled themselves more comfortably into their chairs, the conversation slowly petering out as, one by one, they dozed off, Rodney slumped forward, his head resting on folded arms on the mattress of Sheppard's bed, Ronon stretched out on his chair, his long legs crossed at the ankle, his head tipped back, dreadlocks dangling. Even Colonel Carter and Dr Keller eventually succumbed to sleep, the Colonel's head tipped forward onto her chest, Dr Keller curled sideways on her seat, one leg tucked up under her.

Surrounded by his team, by his family, John Sheppard slept peacefully. Teyla sat for a moment, her eyes growing heavy with sleep, and watched her friends breathe slowly in and out, their bodies relaxed, the nightmares, for now, a thing of the past. Finally, John's hand still warm in hers, she allowed herself to slide more comfortably into the chair and, with a sigh, let her eyes drift closed. This time, sleep was quick to come.

* * *

_**Fin.**_


End file.
